MAC-42

My Lynx 2 has the same problem. I believe it's just the result of the quality of color LCD that was available to Atari at the time. Nothing that can be done about it to my knowledge.

I just started buying homebrews with Astro Blaster. I was going to resume scooping up originals after the start of the New Year, but I've been since eyeing Scramble as my next purchase, actually. Then maybe Frenzy. Then....

What a totally cool idea! A quick web search turned this up. Mystic BBS. Still in active development, open source, and available for Windows, Linux or Mac. I've got an old tablet laying around here. You may have given me a little project to play with now. Thanks!

This is an interesting idea. I've got a spare POKEY that might work--might not, too, but I can always pick one up if it doesn't. Good thinking.

I believe RevEng has scrolling in mind in a future release down the road. Not available just yet. I'd go ahead and use ASM if you can.

I've fallen in love with the POKEY music and would miss it very much. Just for the sake of information, Bob, are you proposing a preliminary run with TIA for those who are interested and a subsequent run once the HOKEY/POKEY situation is settled, or are you proposing a strictly either/or solution? If the latter, I'd definitely be willing to either pay more for POKEY or wait longer for HOKEY. (HOKEY/POKEY. Couldn't help myself. )

My copy arrived yesterday. (I guess the Post Office delivered it on a Sunday because it was behind schedule in terms of its estimated arrival.) This is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I've been playing it in emulation, as I said before, but nothing beats the real thing. My 3-year-old made me play several rounds of it this afternoon so she could watch, and even asked me to let her play it herself. Guess it's a hit with her, and it certainly is with me. Tremendous work, Bob, and a big thanks to Al for getting it into our hands so quickly! Thank you gents so much!

Yeah, apparently, my elder daughter has been talking to her friends at school about Ataris. She reports that, surprise, "none of them know what that is." A couple years back for her birthday, I set up every Atari and NES in the house in one room and left them on for her and her friends to play at their leisure. It was like watching Borg walking past unassimilated humans, treating them as if they didn't exist. My daughter does like to play the games with me though.

My wife monkeys around with SQL databases at work as part of her job. I think I'll have her give this a listen to see how things were back then. Thanks, Wade.

This is a wonderful port. It's so good, the only time I realize that I'm not playing the arcade version in MAME is when it doesn't talk to me about fuel or something. That's not a critique at all; quite the opposite, it's a real credit to Bob's always-astonishing work. And I'm pleased to have snagged a copy! Get it, get it now and get it fast if you can!

Actually, this is my third or fourth run at working with 7800basic. Nothing worth mentioning has come of those past efforts, but I've been able to recycle and recode stuff that has ranged from good sprites to really embarrassingly misunderstood stuff. I really have to thank you and everyone who has posted example code for others to look at; it has really helped me get my head back into coding. (I haven't properly programmed since I was a kid monkeying about in BASIC.) But yeah, I'm definitely wouldn't say that my latest effort is going to light the world on fire or that it will be that great. Better to say that it will be good *for me* to crank out something. Gotta start somewhere.

Thanks to both of you for the updates, RT and RevEng. Very much appreciated as always. It's really neat to be able to whip things up and actually see them coming alive, slowly but surely in my case, with such relative ease! (Life permitting, maybe there will be an extremely early version of something to show off for Hanukkah and Christmas. It really won't be that impressive and, of course, it will probably be late knowing my luck. Shouldn't go around making promises, should I? Oh well, I'm on the hook now!)

Just a small documentation issue I spotted. I wanted to fiddle around with switchreset and saw the following in the documentation: Alas, there is no information in the docs on RT's site on reboot that I can find. I figured it out, but thought I'd mention it for completion's sake.

From what you describe, the problem most likely lies in your cart. My first copy of Pole Position II did things similar to what you describe. I just replaced it. Thankfully, Galaga and PP2 are pretty cheap; I live in mild dread of the day that one of the more expensive carts starts going bad.

Thanks, Albert, and everyone involved in this!

Fantastic ideas. I'm a little busy working on my own little 7800 game just now. You volunteering to crank these out? I'm sorry if that seems kinda cranky, I guess.... It's just that, with all the tools and materials and all of the actual living, breathing experience all around us on this forum, learning to program for the 7800 need not be so far out of reach as it seems. I have a family of 5 and no time at all in my life and even I am managing to churn out a meager little game for the 7800. Take a chance, see what you can learn. Doesn't cost anything, really.

I've always said that, in the hands of enterprising coders, the 7800 is capable of some really fantastic things. This just serves to illustrate that point. Even in this very young state, it's a wonderful thing to see and to know that it could be played on 7800 hardware. (Alas, I'm limited to emulation.) Outstanding, absolutely outstanding.

You got all that for $10? Man...you have my unending envy. My 600XL is right here on my desk, beside my Mac. It's a good and faithful servant. Very nice haul you've got there! The 600XL is infinitely easy to upgrade to 64k of RAM, as Paul says. I upgraded mine, and I barely know which end of a soldering iron to hold. There I highly recommend it.

I agree with CrossBow. I applied foil dots...probably about a year ago now, I guess. They've been sturdy and stable, and the buttons work like a charm. Eventually, they'll come off, but my sticks aren't showing any signs on that happening anytime soon.

I've kept you waiting for a reply, Lynxpro. My apologies. Had to take the legion out for Halloween et cetera. I'll tell you something, though. This mod was my first. (Look closely at the awful gobs of solder on those switches. I hadn't touched a soldering iron since my high school electronics class! ) I've since cobbled together an adapter for Sega light phaser to make it compatible with the 7800 and dragged a 600XL up to 64k. Of these three mods, this joystick mod was the simplest overall. No worrying about cooking ICs with the soldering iron, no real finicky stuff. You just have to make sure the switches are nicely centered over each position on the joystick PCB. If you want to take a crack a modding, I think this one is a great place to start. Low-risk, high-reward stuff. And yes, do feel free to share this with the Facebook folks. Let them know that I got this idea from this Youtube video. (He does the same thing to a CX-40 in the video, but the process is very similar for the ProLine.) Oh, by the way, does anybody know how long of a shaft Yurkie was using for his mod? Since he's not offering it anymore, I would be willing to take a crack at modifying my own joystick to see how it works in concert with this mod. The more I think about these two mods combined, the more curious about the results I get!

Gotcha covered! I took these pics last year. I also do this with my CX-40s. As I said, I haven't had great results adding these switches to the button boards on the ProLines. I guess I need a different spring for this configuration or something. It's one of those simple things I keep meaning to try out but never get around to. In addition to soldering down the switches, I had do take a Dremel to the little nubs on the white bit at the base of the stick. (What do you call that thing? I also took the Dremel to the little posts on the buttons, but you know...buttons again....) The switches take up a good bit of space inside the body of the joystick, and you need to make some clearance for them and for the stick to be able to press down on them. I don't have precise measurements, just an eyeball job. You'll get the idea from the pics, though I'm pretty sure I had to go back and Dremel those nubs down a little more after taking the pic. You still have some of the same torque issues because of the length of that stick, but it seems to respond much better and I don't feel as much discomfort in my hand and wrist when I use this versus a ProLine with dome contacts. Given how simple a mod this is--simple enough for me to do!--the small investment of time makes a big difference to me.

Yeah, I prefer playing the 7800 myself. I do play NES, mostly through a kinda nice emulation setup I have, but I prefer the 7800. (My actual NES doesn't get much action anymore, even after referring it to, you know, work.) And if you fit the ProLine's joystick board with momentary contact switches like I did with mine, the thing works like a dream. (Provided you have good working buttons. I've never been able to stick switches on the little auxiliary button boards in a satisfactory way. Low skill only gets you so far.) I wonder what the switch mod in concert with Yukrie's former ball mod would do for the thing. I never had a 5200 when I was a kid--never even knew about it until the late '80s--but I really like it now. As I've said elsewhere, though, I think that the 7800, in the hands of an enterprising coder, can do some very special magic. I mean, look at those huge skulls in Midnight Madness, or some of the things that Bob does today. Given the stuff the VGC had to work with, I guess I can understand where he was coming from. Today, though, it's a different ballgame. New hardware, new software.... I think the 7800 is finally, at this late date, coming into its own.

Yeah, that was me who left the comment on your PPII video. And now that you beat my score I wish I hadn't. I'm kiddin' around. Welcome aboard! Like roadrunner says, we keep inching closer and closer to that finish line to start the third lap. A good effort! I'll try to make it over the line later on. (Suzuka is bloody brutal, isn't it!?)

I think Trebor's absolutely right about Bomberman on the 7800. That screenshot you've got there is gorgeous! Can't wait to see more!